


plummet as i sing (give me the strength to fly)

by klixxy



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: 5+1 Things, ;-;, Alternate Universe, Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Author Is Sleep Deprived, Awkward Kageyama Tobio, Blind Character, Blind Kageyama Tobio, Depression, Falling In Love, Gen, Heavy Angst, Hinata Shouyou & Kageyama Tobio Friendship, Hinata Shouyou is Sunshine, Hinata Shouyou is a Good Boyfriend, Kageyama Tobio Angst, Kageyama Tobio is Bad at Feelings, Kageyama Tobio-centric, Kageyama is sorta ooc, M/M, OOC characters, POV Hinata Shouyou, References to Depression, References to Suicide, Sad Kageyama Tobio, THERE'S JUST A LOT OF ANGST OKAY, TW: Suicide, The Author Regrets Everything, The Author Regrets Nothing, Wordcount: Over 10.000, but i digress, i almost cried while writing this, i forgot how to count to five lmao, more like 9+1 things, no beta we die like men, sorry - Freeform, tw: depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-22
Updated: 2020-07-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:48:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25443421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/klixxy/pseuds/klixxy
Summary: “Do you know the story of Icarus?” He asks, still staring at the sky with an unblinking gaze, black hair ruffling in the wind.“... No?” Hinata answers hesitantly.“His father built him wings of wax,” Kageyama starts, tilting his head as he studies the wavering line of the horizon, face highlighted gold. “So that he could fly.”(Or, 9 times Hinata and Kageyama watch the sunrise together +1 time they watch the sunset, because somewhere along the way the author forgot how to count to 5.)
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou & Kageyama Tobio, Hinata Shouyou/Kageyama Tobio
Comments: 15
Kudos: 123





	plummet as i sing (give me the strength to fly)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [hear me howling](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22772962) by [lunalou](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunalou/pseuds/lunalou). 



> WARNING: TW: Depression, Suicide, Injury, Blindness.
> 
> This took me forever to write, I'm so sorry. I started this on a whim four months ago, but then after I'd written 5k words my procrastination got to me... I went back and forced myself to finish this and now somehow this thing ended up as 14k. I don't know... I'm tired now...
> 
> Yes, anyways, the beginning and ending are kinda meh in my opinion, so please let me know how it was in the comments after reading! :D
> 
> My playlist as I wrote this: Bea Miller - I Can't Breathe, Woozi (Cover) - Bye Bye My Blue (please try listening to them! they're great songs!)

Kageyama Tobio is Hinata Shouyou’s new neighbor next door. 

He has slightly tan skin, as if he had once been out in the sun all day but stopped going out years back. He has ruffled black hair, as if he doesn’t bother to brush it in the morning and clothes that are so worn that they have holes in them. To be fair, Hinata has clothes like that too, after all, the residents of this apartment are all similar in that aspect- they’re dirt poor.

But the thing that is most interesting about Kageyama Tobio is his eyes. His eyes are an arc of the blackest of ink, blank and dull, lifeless. They often stare into nothing, and are never focused on any objects at all.

The thing about Kageyama, is that he can’t see.

He’s blind.

*

Hinata has always been a light sleeper, and his apartment, with its peeling walls and thin construction, he can hardly sleep without knowing everything his neighbors are doing, be it late-night drinking or angry, heart-broken sobbing. 

And so, he is quick to realize, as he wakes to the sound of a creaking door every morning at four o’clock, that Kageyama goes somewhere in that god-forsaken time, every single day. He’s not a confrontational person, nor is he even really bothered by it; he’s gotten used to living in this apartment and never getting more than five hours of sleep. But even as he rolls over, listening to the sounds of Kageyama’s footsteps, disappearing down the hall, even as the pull of sleep starts to drag him under, he can’t help but feel curiosity, prodding at his mind.

Where is it that Kageyama goes, so early in the morning?

*

Eventually, curiosity gets the better of him. 

He is awoken early in the morning, once again by the creak of the door across the wall to his right, and in a split-second decision, he’s already moving. He wraps a coat over his ratty pajamas and slips on the only pair of shoes that he owns over his feet. As he opens the door, slipping the rusted key in his pocket, he sees a lock of black hair vanish around the corner. He stumbles after it, curiosity and the cold morning air burning the cobwebs of sleep away from his thoughts.

He ends up at a door.

‘ROOFTOP’ It says, and then; ‘DO NOT ENTER’.

Hinata shuffles, debating whether or not he should enter, before he thinks of Kageyama, and what he could be doing on a rooftop at 4 AM.

Before he can think about it further, his hands reach out, turn the handle, and then he’s on the roof.

The first thing that he notices is that it’s colder than he thought it would be, the wind whistling through his ratty pajamas. The second thing that he sees is Kageyama, outlined against the sun as it starts to peek over the horizon, sitting on the edge of the roof, leaning against the opposite side of the railing.

The sun starts to bleed the midnight sky into arrays of pink and orange and the deepest honey-gold. Shadows come to life in the city below them, stretching behind buildings and shying away from the mighty gaze of the sun, dancing amongst the darkness. In the eyes of the waking sun, the city turns to sweltering lines of crimson and marigold, seeming to sway with the wind and melt with the pull of gravity, towards the magma that boils under the surface. Everything looks caught in the jaws of fire, except there’s a delicate balance between raw, striking lines and graceful arcs of flame. 

Everything looks… _alive._

Hinata is caught breathless; for just a moment, the chill in his bones forgotten. 

A moment passes before he is able to shake himself out of his stupor, his gaze catching on the shadowy form of Kageyama as he sits on the edge. He carefully walks towards him, eyes scrutinizing the outline of his back.

“What are you doing?” He asks him as he gingerly leans against the railing, peering curiously down at Kageyama. Kageyama doesn’t answer, instead opting to stare into the sun with his blank eyes, staring at nothing in particular. The wind ruffles Hinata’s hair as he thoughtfully turns back to look at the sun-stretched city, awaiting an answer. As he observes a man walking down the street, turned into a shadowy blob, he waits. 

When the moment stretches on just a moment too long, he wonders if he should break the silence, if he should repeat his question, but something holds him back, something tells him to wait, just a little bit longer.

It’s peaceful up here, he realizes.

Calming.

“Hinata-san.” Kageyama acknowledges quietly, his voice barely heard over the wind, and Hinata startles, because he’d gotten lost in the sun, lost in the view and the wind and the warmth that starts to seep beneath his skin with the sun’s rays. 

His looks back at Kageyama, and he observes him for a moment.

He observes black hair, streaked with lines of gold and orange and red, caught aflame with the roaring passion of the sun, the quiet calm of glowing embers. He observes tan skin awash in gold, turning him into a portrait with gentle, sloping lines of honey and feather-light touches of silver. He observes blind eyes glimmering like stars in the light of the sun as Kageyama stares straight into it, unflinching. He is painted with the careful hands of a painter, and if Hinata looks closely, he thinks he can see the ink that makes up this portrait of a man swirling and drifting with the flow of the wind.

He observes him, this man made of fire and wind and sky.

In this moment, Kageyama resembles the wind, ever-moving, ever-changing, free and flowing towards a place nobody can understand, kissed by the light of the sun.

“What are you doing?” Hinata asks again, voice quieted by the tranquil atmosphere.

He is not given an answer, but as he stares at the sun, at the world in all of its beauty, as he stares at this man who flies with the wind, even when he sits still, he realizes, in astounding certainty, that he doesn’t need one.

He swings his legs over the railing and slides down to sit next to this mystery of a man, sightless and soundless and made of the energy that breathes through this world.

*

Eventually, as the weeks pass, it becomes routine. 

Hinata wakes with the sound of the door, creaking open in the hallway, wraps himself in a thin blanket, climbs the many stairs to the rooftop, and sits to revel in the sunrise, to revel in a man, wrapped in mysteries and a quiet, breathtaking kind of mourning.

They never speak.

Hinata hasn’t even heard Kageyama’s voice since that first day, when he greeted him with the quietest of greetings and a view that spoke more than any words could ever imply.

And so, perhaps it comes as a surprise when one day, as Hinata counts the number of people going for an early morning jog on the sidewalk, Kageyama starts to speak. His voice is rough and monotone, but it carries over to Hinata’s ears with the drifting wind. Kageyama doesn’t look at him while he speaks.

“I used to play volleyball.” He says, and there is a wistful longing, seeping into his voice like flower petals in the wind. “I still remember the smell of the court. I remember the feel of the wood beneath my feet, the wind in my hair, buoying me up as I reeled back to spike, to set, to serve.” As he speaks, there is something like grief that simmers in his eyes and a deep emptiness that vibrates in his throat.

“I still remember the court and the net and the feeling of the ball, in my hands,” Kageyama continues, and it’s like Hinata isn’t even there. Like he is just lost in the memories that arise in his mind, just speaking to the wind and the sun and the world, laid out in front of him. “I loved it.” Kageyama says, his voice almost silent with the admission, but steady as stone with belief.

“Volleyball.” He closes his eyes, but Hinata knows that either way, there will be nothing to greet him but never-ending darkness. And perhaps it’s pity, writhing in the gut of his stomach, perhaps it’s wonder, that Kageyama is actually speaking to him, like this, perhaps it’s the young part of him, who used to love the sport just as much, but Hinata feels something sinking and yet rising in the depths of his chest.

“I still love it.” Kageyama says, and there’s a finality in his tone that tells Hinata that he’s done. That he’s said all he wanted to say. 

Hinata wonders if he should reply, if he should say anything back.

But even if he wanted to, there are no words that he could ever find to form a reply in this situation.

So instead, Hinata sits, and he listens.

*

Kageyama doesn’t speak often. It’s something of a rarity, actually.

But Hinata comes to the rooftop every morning. He sits, and lets the warmth of the sun wash him away, lets the strange, tense and yet calm atmosphere lure him into security.

He sits, and on the rare occasion that Kageyama speaks, he listens. He listens, he listens, and he lets himself be a rock, a person who neither agrees nor denies, someone who just sits there and _listens_ , because sometimes that’s more than enough.

“Did you know,” Kageyama starts on a March morning, the icy wind buffeting Hinata’s orange locks into his eyes and all over his cheeks, the clouds covering the sun and making him shiver under the thin caress of his clothes. “That even if you’re deaf or mute, you can still play volleyball?”

Hinata lets out a shaky breath, his teeth chattering in his mouth, but he turns his head to stare at Kageyama nevertheless, who seems unbothered by the way the wind howls in his ears and pulls at his hair.

“Even if one of your limbs is hurt, you can still play, however little that may be.” He says, glazed eyes watering as they face the wind head-on, wide and unreadable.

“But if you’re blind, you can’t.” He speaks, and he smiles. He smiles without any emotion at all; his smile is neither happy nor sad nor empty. It’s not filled with longing or with sorrow.

He smiles, but it’s nothing but a twitch of his muscles, a pull on his cheeks.

“If you’re blind, you can’t play.”

*

For the first time, Hinata speaks first. There is a burning curiosity, roaring in his mind and tickling at his senses. He wants to know more about this man, wants to see who he truly is.

Because Kageyama Tobio is a man swimming in mysteries, a man who never reveals more than the tiniest amount, a man of sunrises and gentle, aching loneliness.

Because in that odd time that is neither dawn nor midnight, Kageyama Tobio shimmers like he is not of this world, like there aren’t shadows, pulling at his thoughts, a past, keeping him rooted in place, a deep feeling of loss, that grinds his entire being into nothingness.

Because, despite everything, Hinata doesn’t think that he can stay silent in the face of Kageyama’s anguish.

“What position did you play?” He asks softly. He doesn’t want to push too far, doesn’t want to force Kageyama to say anything. 

Kageyama doesn’t answer for a long, long while. He just sits, legs curled towards his chest as if hiding away from the light of the sun, as if curling away in defense. He sits, and stares with unblinking eyes at the blinding light of the horizon, not even glancing in Hinata’s direction. He is lost in his own world, deaf to Hinata’s voice.

Hinata wonders if he should ask again, louder. But he doesn’t want to push him, doesn’t want to prod to the point that Kageyama will retreat into his own shell again, doesn’t want to let himself be pushed away.

So he waits.

And he waits.

Hoping, _knowing_ that eventually, Kageyama will answer.

“I flew.” Kageyama finally says, never answering his questions straight on. The sun bathes him in the glow of dying embers, glinting in his hair like gold. Kageyama rests in head in the palm of his hand, eyes roving the horizon as if maybe hoping to see something besides darkness.

“I flew, once.”

*

Kageyama’s words swim in his head, and Hinata feels as if perhaps he has bitten off more than he can chew, as if maybe he has gotten into something way over his head.

Kageyama is a man outlined with the crimson of dancing flames and the sweeping lines of the wind. He is a man who embodies the sky; quiet and calming and yet dripping with the hollow emptiness that seeps through limbs and skin and bones- a type of sorrow that can never be forgotten, that is as heavy as the burden of Atlas, the whole sky bearing down upon a single pair of shoulders. He is a man of flame and wind, but also of winding midnight shadows that swirl like the darkest night sky, sucking you in closer and closer and swallowing you whole.

Hinata is scared. He is scared of this man, and how it seems so impossible to pull Kageyama away from his own destructive mind, to free him of the thoughts that pick like vultures at his happiness.

Hinata is scared.

But he also feels like he wants to save him.

He wants to save Kageyama.

*

_“I flew, once.”_  
.  
.  
.  
.  
_“Now all I do is fall.”_

*

Trust is a fickle thing.

Hinata has always been inept when it came to reading the atmosphere. He would laugh too loud when nobody else was laughing, he would stumble upon serious conversations by accident and attract the negative attention of strangers. He’s been told, multiple times, that his high-pitched voice is annoying and that he’s being too loud.

Trust is truly a fickle thing, and Kageyama, with his silent demeanor and his roundabout way of answering, is a wild animal, quiet and observing, a person who is more than hesitant to trust even the closest of people.

Kageyama doesn’t let anybody close, doesn’t let anybody come far enough past his borders.

And most let him. 

They don’t see the point in trying to get this grown man open up to them when they won’t gain anything in return. So they leave him alone, don’t pry when he refuses, and eventually, they stop asking him to come with them, stop knocking on his door to get him to let them in.

But Hinata, strangely, feels drawn to this man, as he slowly starts to memorize the way he looks, ablaze in the fiery reach of the summer sun; he is the silent beauty of red leaves in the fall, the cold awe of the wind howling in the mountaintops, he is a splash of the deepest blue, a roar of a whale in the darkest parts of the ocean. He is a symphony of silence, the moments between the haunting vibration of the notes expanded into an abyss of empty poignance. He is something Hinata can’t explain, something he will _never_ be able to explain.

Trust is a fickle thing.

But Hinata wants him- this creature made of red and blue and the striking force that is wind. Hinata wants this man that is made of such deep desolation to be able to trust him.

And eventually, as the months go on, he sees that Kageyama is, albeit slowly, starting to do so.

It’s fascinating.

How this man, made of the wild things that roar with the flames and the frothy sea starts to make space for Hinata within his life. How Kageyama starts to acknowledge him, when he comes to the roof; little things, like turning his head just the slightest bit when Hinata sits down next to him, like how he relaxes in his presence as if he no longer needs to run from Hinata’s words; like how the more Hinata listens to the gradually unraveling story of this man of mystery’s life, the more he actually reveals.

It’s fascinating, incredible, and yet, it is fearful.

Because the more the mystery unravels, the more Hinata pieces together, the more he realizes-

Just how deep Kageyama’s sorrow goes.

*

It’s fall, and when the sun rises over the horizon, the leaves glow with gold, the crimson leaves speckling the world like little spots of blood. The wind pulls at the trees, at the leaves, clinging desperately onto the slowly-exposing branches before swirling away, scattering into the world, layering it with the colors of fire.

It’s starting to get chillier again, so Hinata digs through his meager closet in search of a scarf. He comes across one that reminds him of Kageyama’s eyes- a sweep of the coolest blue. It’s not the one he usually wears; it’s pretty old, actually. 

And yet the next morning he finds himself gingerly wrapping the scarf around his bare neck before he traipses up to the roof for that time, in between starlight and sun, a place somewhere in-between the lines of reality and a world of fiction- a man of flames and sky and wind, aflame amidst the roar of the sunlight. 

He sits, leans against the rail, the familiar cool touch of the metal sinking in despite his heavier clothes. He dangles his legs down the edge, kicking them gently, watching the sun meld into the sky like paint seeping into fabric.

For a long while, he just sits in comfortable silence, sighing against the warmth that pools against his cheeks with the light of the sun. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Kageyama lift his hand delicately to grip a stray leaf that flutters onto his legs, lit with Apollo’s touch in the golden morning. He twirls it slowly in his fingers, eyes roving the leaf as if he could see it with his blind eyes, the sun lighting it up and visualizing the veins that stretch within it.

“I lost everything.” He says abruptly, low voice breaking the silence, and Hinata, although surprised that he is talking so soon, immediately turns his attention to him.

“I lost everything.” Kageyama says again, tearing his blank eyes from the leaf to look at Hinata. Despite being blind, despite being unable to see Hinata’s face, Hinata feels like Kageyama is staring directly into his eyes, and from there even further, until Kageyama is staring at Hinata’s very soul, his very essence. 

Kageyama’s lips twitch slightly, still staring straight into Hinata’s eyes. Half of his face is inked with shadow, painted with careful strokes of black and grey, but the other half glimmers with gold, his black hair alight with the silver of the moon and his normally dull eyes turned into striking pools of shifting red and orange and yellow.

Kageyama smiles with a poignance and slight acrimony, the red scarf looped around his neck fluttering with the wind like a red string of fate.

“And it was all my fault.”

*

_“Perhaps I’ll tell you the rest someday.” He says later that morning, when it almost becomes time for Hinata to leave for work, while Hinata is still lost in thought from his words before._

_Hinata is shocked, surprise blooming in his chest, because Kageyama has never spoken after he tells those little snippets of his story, never spoken directly to him. He swallows nervously, caught off guard, unsure what to respond. Kageyama side-eyes him, dull eyes glimmering with what seems like amusement in the rays of the sun, now high in its path in the sky, as if he can hear what Hinata is thinking._

_“.... Really?” Hinata asks him, his shock evident in his voice. To his even greater surprise, Kageyama even snorts quietly at that, turning his head to look back at the sun, a genuine smile twitching at his lips despite the solitude that Hinata knows is lodged within his mind._

_After a beat of silence, where Hinata is unsure whether to wait for an answer, Kageyama speaks again. As he listens, Hinata vaguely thinks that this might be the first time Kageyama has spoken this much to him._

_“Maybe. Idiot.” Kageyama adds on the last word like it’s an afterthought, quietly closing himself up again as he leans his head back against the railing, hands stretched out in his lap as if used to holding something there._

_‘Maybe,’ Hinata thinks, eyes raking over Kageyama’s form, the city bustling to life below them as he slowly starts to stand, all too aware that if he lingers for any longer, he’ll be late to the job he’d just barely acquired a couple months ago._

_Maybe._

*

Somehow, Hinata Shouyou has earned the tentative trust of Kageyama Tobio.

He’s both terrified and amazed.

*

Hinata studies the bare branches of the trees below them, eyeing one that looks particularly nasty, like barbed claws ripping through the horizon. It isn’t quite cold enough that his breath shows up in the air as puffs of mist, but it’s gotten to the point where there aren’t quite as many leaves on the ground anymore. The trees are orange on one side and black on the other, casting long, spindly shadows over the streets like puppet dolls on strings.

Today, Kageyama doesn’t speak until it’s almost time for Hinata to leave, opting instead to sit in the now companionable silence that envelops them both as they take in the world that almost no one is awake to see, one with sight and the other with silence.

Finally, Kageyama speaks, just ten minutes before Hinata has to go.

“Do you know the story of Icarus?” He says, still staring at the sky with an unblinking gaze.

“... No?” Hinata answers hesitantly. These days, he’s taken to answering, to actually holding a conversation with this man who’s come to trust him, this man who he’s come to care for.

“His father built him wings of wax,” Kageyama starts, tilting his head as he studies the wavering line of the horizon. “So that he could fly.”

Hinata stares at him, and wonders just what exactly he could be thinking, because there is something deep in his eyes, something that Hinata can’t really name, but can tell that it is something dark and impactful, something of importance.

“His father warned him not to fly too close to the sun, but Icarus was a proud fool.” Kageyama says, and perhaps that is bitterness, seeping into his tone, creeping with the wind through his hair. Hinata feels as if there is something important in this moment, in the air as he listens. 

This is something that is important to Kageyama.

Hinata wishes he could know why.

“He flew and flew, but he flew too high, and his wings melted to nothing on his back. He lost everything in that split second.” Kageyama continues, and the low timbre of his voice seems to vibrate in Hinata’s mind, something entrancing about this story, about Icarus, who once had wings of wax. It feels like there is a spell that Kageyama has put on him, reeling him in closer and closer until he is invested in this little fairytale that Kageyama has woven, these mysteries that unfold in front of his very eyes as he spends time upon this roof, inside the intricate maze of Kageyama’s life.

“He lost everything.” Kageyama repeats, closing his eyes with a puff of the deepest of mourning. Hinata realizes that he’s holding his breath, eyes wide.

“And then he plummeted to the earth once more, and he died.” He says, eyes still closed, his fingers reaching up to brush at his eyelids as if they are fragile castles of glass, already shattered, already broken, because no matter how easy it is to forget it, Hinata is brutally reminded of the fact that Kageyama is blind.

That he’s lost a fundamental part of his life.

That he no longer sees anything but a backdrop of midnight black; no red, no orange, or yellow. No green, no blue, no purple. No brown or white or grey.

He’s _blind._

“He died.” Kageyama repeats, and there’s something magnetic in Kageyama’s voice, because all of a sudden Hinata feels like something is snapping inside of him. He feels desperate and panicked and yet he doesn’t even know why. He’s suddenly scared because as the puzzle that is Kageyama Tobio starts to form beneath his gaze, Hinata is starting to become all too aware of how deep under he is, how unequipped he is to be Kageyama’s lifeline in the storm that is his mind, and yet- 

He wants to help. 

He wants to be able to help this man feel like he can truly live again, wants to help him love life again, love _himself_ again, but there is so much weight behind those blind eyes, within these words that Kageyama is speaking, and Hinata can’t-

He realizes that now, that these mornings have become something irreplaceable to him.

_Kageyama_ has become something irreplaceable to him.

“No-!” Hinata bursts out, hands reaching forwards desperately to grab onto Kageyama’s wrists, pulling him towards him so that he can stare right into his blank eyes. He licks his lips, breaths coming faster in his panic, and the words rush out of him before he can even think. “Didn’t you know? The- the other half of the story!” The words cascade from his lips, and his mind feels oddly blank and yet rushing with adrenaline as he scrambles to put his thoughts together into a coherent sentence.

“He- Icarus- had a friend who he gifted another pair of wings!” He yells suddenly, round brown eyes staring insistently into Kageyama’s. Hinata sees the surprise reflected in those deep blue depths, but he forges onwards, pushing his face into Kageyama’s. “Icarus started to fall, but- but his friend managed to catch him before he hit the ground and carried him back to his father!” Hinata stumbles through his words, stammering, but despite not even knowing what he is saying, he knows that he means every single word.

A sudden silence descends upon the two. 

Hinata, realizing halfway through that he is still gripping tightly onto Kageyama's wrists, quickly lets go as if burned. Kageyama stares in Hinata’s general direction in shock, pupils blown wide, lips slightly parted. 

A long moment passes as Hinata awkwardly blinks, unsure of what he just did. He opens his mouth to apologize when Kageyama’s expression suddenly morphs into a sad sort of acceptance, a cheerless and yet amused smile spreading across his lips. Kageyama huffs a laugh, slowly moving back to his original position, though he tilts his head slightly until Hinata can see the outline of his eyes that seem to shimmer through the shadows that draw their way across his face.

“Yeah,” He says, lips quirked in a strange mix of grief and joy. His blue eyes glint, swirling like the water in a pool, glowing a bright blue and yet dark with something unsaid.

“Maybe he can catch him.” He says, turning back to look into nothing in particular and yet something unseen.

“Icarus, that is.”

*

_(“I lost everything._

_And it was all my fault.”)_

*

That year, December descends upon them like a vicious cougar, claws outstretched. Snow storms through the night, so thick out the window that Hinata can’t see four feet from the window-pane. The paper-thin walls of the apartment shiver with the same rhythm of Hinata’s bones as he trembles from the icy wind howling through the cracks in the scaffolding. He spends the night bundled up in all of the blankets he could scrounge up from the pitiful pile of his belongings, wrapped up in layer after layer. 

He finds it hard to fall asleep when the whole apartment seems to shake under the fury of the North Wind, and yet, he finds himself imagining all of the terrible scenarios where his room goes flying away one second and the next drowsily blinking his eyes open to the familiar sound of the squeaky doorway next door. 

The world outside is still dark with midnight as if some deity has accidentally spilled thick ink all over the world and the sun had decided to sleep in. Snow flutters down in rivets, dancing an invisible path across the sky with the push of the wind. The storm has calmed, but the freezing rain continues on.

Hinata stumbles to his feet, sleep crusting in his eyes and turning his shadow-filled world into blurry lines of gray, hoping to himself that the sound he had just heard wasn’t Kageyama, planning to go to the roof even in this weather. But as he hears creaking footsteps disappear down the hall above the quiet whistling of the wind outside, he resigns himself to consequently freezing to death on the rooftop of a raggedy old apartment in his late twenties, wearing nothing but ripped mickey mouse PJs and ten different blankets. 

When he finally manages to find his way out onto the roof in the darkness, his lips are trembling so bad that he thinks that every single person in a ten-mile radius must hear the sound of his teeth rattling like thunder in his mouth. He finally shoves the door open, and despite the immediate chill that rips through his skin, he feels the wind tear a soundless gasp from his lips. 

The moon peeks out from behind stormy gray skies even as it starts to disappear over the horizon and alights the snow with ghostly silver light- snow glittering like stars as it dances in the sky, the thick layer of it layering the ground of the roof like a field of flowing white poppies, glowing so bright that it takes his eyes a moment to adjust. Gentle curves of a careful hand paint arcing strokes of majestic grays and blacks and breathtaking pure whites into the canvas of the world- there is a silent beauty in a world devoid of sound. 

Everything is still and unmoving; like a painting hung in the corner of a museum, meant for the eyes of no one but the world as it continues revolving on its axis, of the moon as it slowly rotates over the heads of hundreds of thousands of people lost in the layering realm of the dream world, sleeping through a tranquil sort of silent beauty that soaks through reality. 

Hinata feels as if he has accidentally stumbled into another world; one that is made up of swirls of dark paint and blinding whites, one where angels sing in the stars above and time is a concept lost within the calm chaos of normality. One where silence roars with the sounds that drift in the waking day, one where everything fades away but for the silhouette that Hinata sees outlined against the railing, snow falling and illuminating a slim face and billowing dark hair with a silver glow that makes him- makes _Kageyama_ \- look ethereal. 

Stepping a little bit closer, step by step, feet crunching against the soft snow, Hinata’s breath is stolen away by soft swirls of black ink, intertwined together in endless pools of shadowy eyes; by long eyelashes outlined one by one in delicate silver, by short black hair billowing wildly in the soft wind that brushes freezing fingers across glowing silver skin.

Kageyama is bathed in silver. His limbs and his eyes and his hair _gleam_ with silver, gleam with the radiance of the stars, as if the moon herself has floated down from her irreversible place in the heavens above and breathed beautiful, bursting _life_ into this man as he sits as if he has been pulled right out of the legendary stories of long ago, as if he is something that has been lost to human eyes for centuries- something imaginary and yet so very tangible that words could never explain, that a name could never call- something tentatively, breathtakingly exclaimed; an angel.

Time slows to a crawl, or perhaps it’s speeding ahead, to a place that breathes with a- a type of- _elegance_ \- that Hinata can’t ever, possibly describe again.

But right now, as Hinata stares down into this man who is, in every way, fake- too beautiful to be human, too fragile to be in existence, too strong to be handled, too elegant to be looked upon, too sorrowful to ever be understood- and yet so, incredibly, irrevocably, _real_ \- a real hurt, and a real presence, a real touch, and a real life. Real stories and real memories that Hinata is slowly starting to understand, a real person that is slowly being revealed to him.

As Hinata stares down at this man who’s become something irreplaceable in his heart, the cold and the weariness and the surreal fantasy that is drifting around them falls away.

This is Kageyama, the man who he sits with every sunrise, Kageyama, who tells him the stories of his life in broken, halting bits that start to stitch together into a story that is filled with so much more hurt than Hinata sometimes feels that he can handle.

This is Kageyama, who has been a constant in his life for almost a year now.

Kageyama, beautiful and tentative and soft and _hurting._

The snow crunches loudly beneath his feet.

Hinata steps over the railing; the action that had once felt awkward now something that feels as natural as blinking. Hinata steps over the railing, over the stillness that hovers in the air, and sits next to this man; an angel, a _human._

Others may have stopped knocking on Kageyama’s door, but Hinata will always be standing there in front of it, and he will be knocking and knocking and he’ll _never stop._

Because he _cares_ , now.

He cares. He really, _really_ does.

He’s starting to realize that now.

Kageyama may have once been something untouchable- something to be marveled at; a mystery. And he still is. He is still just as breathtaking and majestic and mysterious as Hinata had seen him as on that fateful first day- but now? 

But now, he feels _real._

Like Hinata could reach out, and touch him.

Bring him back to life.

His fingers reach out without him even thinking about it, and brush against the skin of Kageyama’s cheek. He is warm and real and so, very vulnerable. _Soft_ , in a way that Hinata doesn’t think he can ever understand.

Kageyama startles, blind eyes widening, each eyelash highlighted with silver, his face jolting towards Hinata’s direction.

“H-Hinata-san?”

His voice is quiet and shy and filled with something that makes Hinata want to wrap up this man- who towers above him in height, this man whose presence fills the entire room- into a big, gigantic hug so that no one will ever be able to hurt him again, and never let go.

Hinata could save him.

He could _save_ him.

“Call me Shouyo.”

Kageyama _glows_ in the moonlight. The snow around them sparkles like stars. 

Hinata gently grabs Kageyama’s cheeks within his hands and squeezes- as if he is something fragile and magnificent, something to be caressed. Like he is worth it- worth it all, because, Hinata realizes, that is how everyone _deserves_ to be treated.

“Hinata-san.” Kageyama says rigidly, tense in his grip and confusion swimming in his eyes.  
Long-old hurt glitters in his pupils.

“Shouyo.” Hinata replies determinedly. “Call me Shouyo… Tobio-kun.” Kageyama sucks in a sharp breath, his hands coming up to blindly grab at Hinata’s hand, at his arms, as if confirming that he really exists, as if reassuring himself that this is not just a twisted fantasy of hope that he has created in the darkness of his mind.

Kageyama’s hands are chilly but burn with the warmth of life beneath his own, and Hinata presses his hands against them, speaking without words, speaking with the silence that sings in this world of midnight.

_I’m here._

Kageyama tenses once more, almost as if he is a turtle, retreating back into his own shell for safety, presented with a type of love that he hasn’t experienced in what must’ve been far too long.

Hinata grips these hands- long, elegant fingers and age-old callouses from an era that Kageyama will never be able to return to, pale and pretty and- Hinata grips Kageyama’s hands, and tells him that he is here, and he _isn’t going to leave_. Kageyama stays frozen for just a moment longer before vulnerability strips his blind eyes raw with the wind that throws their hair into their eyes and the moonlight that drifts around them, striking and silent but overflowing with the emotions that _break._

Hinata grips Kageyama’s hands and tells him that he doesn’t have to be alone anymore, and Kageyama _melts_. The rigidity slips from his shoulders and the tense coil of his muscles as he comes cascading forwards, breathing out the rain and the clouds and the storm that rages in his mind as he buries his head into curve of Hinata’s shoulder, allowing him to be his protector for just a moment.

“Hinata-san.” He breathes out, whisper-quiet, into the folds of Hinata’s mickey-mouse pajama top. 

Kageyama smells like vanilla and rain and the crackle of a campfire in the middle of the night. He smells like the fresh pull of the wind in the sky and the innocence of morning dew. His body is warm against his own, and Hinata shivers minutely as he moves his hand to carefully wrap around Kageyama's lithe body. Kageyama shakes surreptitiously, but Hinata can feel it all- the raw history of self-blame and hurt that shivers beneath Kageyama’s bones- underneath the firm grip of his palm against Kageyama’s back.

Hinata huffs out an equally quiet laugh, not wanting to ruin the tranquil atmosphere.

“You’re so stubborn, Bakayama.” He jokes, but fondness seeps into his voice like ink and he knows that Kageyama can hear it.

“Hinata-san.” Kageyama repeats again stubbornly, and Hinata laughs quietly at the almost-pout that is forming against Kageyama’s mouth. 

Kageyama’s grip on his arms are almost bruising, but Hinata doesn’t mind. Kageyama may be blind, may be swimming in a world of darkness where the lines between ‘real’ and ‘fake’ blur into vacancy, but Hinata is here, and he is _real,_ and if Kageyama needs to hold him like he might evaporate into mist at any moment to confirm that, then Hinata will let him.

He’ll let him.

.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.

_I’m here._

*

The next morning, the sun breaks through the clouds and the storm that had raged the day before drifts away into a reality not their own. The all-too-familiar sound of the door creaking open brings Hinata’s eyes open, and for a moment, all Hinata wants to do is roll over in bed and sink back into the realm of dreams, letting the soft blurriness whisk him away.

Then, he thinks, _Kageyama_ , and then he’s groaning as he pulls his too-long-for-his-torso limbs out of bed and gathers up his blankets to face the chilly morning of January.

He skips the one creaky stair on the staircase, rubbing the last of sleep from his eyes, and side-steps the coffee stain on another without much of a glance. The routine is embedded into his bones, and now there is no hesitation as he opens the door to the roof. He wonders if the scary old landlady knows that neither he nor Kageyama are heeding her sign of ‘DO NOT ENTER’.

The sun breaks through the clouds and all of the puddles on the floor shine like diamonds. A stark contrast from yesterday morning, everything is outlined in gold. Hinata almost feels as if yesterday was a dream, and that strange time where the moon hung over the horizon had never existed at all, and yet as he spots Kageyama sitting with his legs dangling over the edge, just like that first day he had seen him- ethereal and beautiful, but now so, very real- he knows that it had happened, just like he knows that the sun is yellow and the sea is blue.

Somewhere deep in his soul, he knows it happened. He had held Kageyama and gripped all of his sorrow and grief, Kageyama had looked up at him with those glistening blue eyes and Hinata had opened his mouth and his lips had spelled out _“Tobio”._

His feet splash in the puddles as he ventures towards the edge of the rooftop, suddenly feeling very unsure of himself. As he sits, the water on the ground soaks his pants, but Hinata finds that he doesn’t mind. Kageyama breathes next to him, slow and even, completely at ease. The railing is cold, but Hinata leans against it, and even as he stares into the sun, he can’t help but remember yesterday, and the moonlight against Kageyama’s face.

“Tobio-kun?” He asks carefully, side-eyeing Kageyama. If he isn’t comfortable with Hinata calling him by his first name, then Hinata will stop. But somehow, some part of him already knows that Kageyama is alright with it.

Kageyama takes a deep breath, as if he is preparing himself for something big. His hands, clasped in his lap, tense for just a moment before he relaxes again with the exhale. The wind buffets their hair, gentle and foreboding, leading up to a suspense that Hinata doesn’t think he can handle. He feels as if this is the moment when Kageyama will tell him the last of his story, will place that final puzzle piece into the mystery that makes him who he is today- sitting here upon this roof.

He feels the anticipation welling up inside of him, a wave of concern and excitement and anxiety. But at the same time, he feels dread.

Dread that the story will be too sorrowful for him to handle.

Dread that Kageyama will be too broken for him to fix.

Dread that Kageyama will not want him around anymore after he has revealed himself to him.

Kageyama takes a deep breath, outlined in gold and red and all the things that life can never explain in the sunrise, looks up at him, his eyes alive with the ocean and the fire and the stardust that sprinkles the world in small, earth-shattering moments, and opens his mouth to say:

“I’m ready to tell you now.” His voice is soft, but it holds a strength and determination that Hinata feels like he is hearing for the first time. Something unexplainable wells up in Hinata’s chest and he feels that he may cry; why, he doesn’t know. He reaches out with trembling fingers overflowing with emotion and grips Kageyama. Kageyama is his lifeline, and yet Hinata is also his. They are intertwined- yin and yang, push and pull, two opposite forces pulled together like gravity.

“It was a car crash.” Kageyama says, eyes soft and hurting, filled with regret. But there is a strength of acceptance in his voice now, and Hinata, despite feeling something hollow and painful spike in his chest, feels as though they can take this. They can take these broken moments and make it theirs. They can make it _okay_ again, regardless of what that means.

“My parents wanted me to take a rest; to take care of myself. It was a week before nationals and I was nervous. I wanted my team to be able to make it. So I practiced. A lot. Maybe too much.” He lets out a tired laugh. “Definitely too much.” He goes quiet for a moment, gripping at Hinata’s hands, and he seems to find something there, within Hinata’s small palms and too-thin fingers and chewed nails, because he gathers his strength and forges on.

“We were…” He starts, and Hinata’s heart squeezes and aches and stutters, so he gently presses down on Kageyama’s large hands gathered within his own and hopes that that is enough. “We were arguing in the car. They wanted me to take a couple days off and relax, and I… I didn’t want to. It got really heated. I said a lot of things I should never have said. I was at the wheel, and for a moment I just…” He trails off, and he takes a shuddering breath. The sun turns him to liquid gold, and Hinata wants to find him real gold, so he can patch him up like kintsugi, so that he can squeeze gold into all of his cracks and rebuild something even more beautiful than what had once been. Hinata wants to be able to be…

He wants to be able to be _there._

“Tobio…” He says lowly, quietly, not wanting to make him stop, but not necessarily wanting him to go on any further. It hurts, like a knife to his chest, because he cares about Kageyama, now, and whenever he sees Kageyama get like this- _this_ being sad and defeated and filled with a grief that Hinata doesn’t know what to do with- something in him cries.

Kageyama looks up at him with dark, blind eyes that glimmer in the sunrise, and Hinata…

Hinata grips these hands within his own and _wishes_.

Kageyama’s lips quirk up a little, his thumbs rubbing gently against Hinata’s skin as if to draw strength from the emotions that pour from his veins.

“It was my fault.” He says softly. “There was this drunk truck driver and we…” He swallows, his Adam's apple bobbing gold.

Hinata exhales, feeling the grief slosh in his chest.

“You crashed.” He says for him, squeezing Kageyama’s hands.

“...Yes.” He agrees, sighing. “Yes we did.” 

The sun shines, the wind blows, and below them, the city comes to life. Cars honk and people stir and voices drift up to them in the chilly breeze. Birds chirp and trees whisper and shadows dance in the places where people cannot see. The world comes to life below them, but Hinata only has eyes for this man, sitting in front of him now, telling him the story of how his life fell apart and the stitching of his _being_ was ripped to pieces. 

They sit in silence for a beat. Then another.

“The doctors said my parents died immediately from the impact.” Kageyama says suddenly, voice monotone. A part of Hinata starts to wail. He buries his head into their interlocked hands and hopes that Kageyama can feel the beat of his heart, thumping wildly in sorrow. “I always did tell them that their refusal to wear a seatbelt would be the thing that killed them. And well… it did.” He laughs again, voice cracking. Hinata grips Kageyama’s hands so hard that he thinks that his bones may break.

“ _I_ did.” Kageyama says, so quiet that even Hinata, sitting this close to him, almost misses it. Hinata’s heart breaks a little.

“No.” He says quietly. “No, you didn’t.” Hinata says, pouring all the truth he could into his voice. He needs to convince Kageyama of this. No part of this was his fault. It was all just one big, ugly coincidence. That driver had just coincidentally been drunk, and Kageyama’s parents had just coincidentally not been wearing their seatbelt. Life could be so, so cruel.

Kageyama is quiet for a long moment, his thumbs still rubbing circles into Hinata’s palms.

“Well either way,” He says again after a while, sighing. “After that I fell into a coma and missed the nationals. I woke up and the world was black. I was blind.” He says, and while Hinata wants to tell him _it really wasn’t your fault,_ and _you didn’t kill your parents, Tobio_ , but he knows that nothing he says will truly change his outlook. For now, all Hinata can do is press their hands to his heart, listen to Kageyama’s story, and hope that his strength and love and the rapid beat of his heart can be enough for the both of them.

“My team lost nationals.” He continues when Hinata doesn’t reply. “I was blind and my parents were dead and I could _never play volleyball again_. I was hurt and hurt and _hurt_ , and for some reason, when I heard that they hadn’t even made it to the second round, that was the tipping point.” His fingers clench at Hinata’s, slightly trembling.

“I said ugly words that day. I said terrible, _terrible_ words that day, and well, there was only so much they could take. We screamed and we shouted and we cried and cried and cried. Fists were thrown and people were hurt, and when it was all over, I sat alone in the middle of the locker room of a team that I had truly loved, and realized that all the people that I loved and had loved me, I had pushed away. I had broken _everything_.” The words rush out of his mouth as if Kageyama doesn’t want to stop to think about them, as if they scald and burn on his tongue and the only thing he can do is let them rush out, let them cascade out of him like a waterfall of shattered memories. 

Hinata’s heart _breaks_.

“Oh…” He says, and it’s all that he can bear to say. “Oh, _Tobio_.”

Tears run down Kageyama’s cheeks, and as the sorrow overflows from Hinata’s too-small skin, faced with such tragedy, all Hinata can do is pull Kageyama into a hug.

It’s awkward and uncomfortable, but Kageyama fucking _deserves_ one, and for a while they just breathe into each other’s embrace, trembling against each other. He can feel a wet spot appearing on his shoulder, but all he does is pull Kageyama closer, wishing that he could transfer some- _any_ of the raging feelings that tear against his ribcage to him. Wishing that his love could be _enough_ for Kageyama, enough to _fix_ him and _help_ him and _mend_ his calamity of memories.

He can feel tears running down his cheeks, and he knows that Kageyama can feel the painful beat of his heart and _oh, Hinata loves him too much it hurts_. Kageyama is broken and breaking and some part of him is still young, sitting in that dark locker room wondering where everything went wrong. Hinata wants to turn back time- he’d give anything to turn back time, go back to that locker room and knock some sense into those teammates, knock some sense into Kageyama, gather Kageyama up into the longest, biggest hug- Hinata would give anything if it meant that he could _help_ him.

Hinata wishes that he could be enough.

That he could help Kageyama feel like he is _enough_ , because he _is._

He is _more_ than enough.

Hinata hugs Kageyama against a backdrop of a beautiful sunset, but all he can think about is how much he wants to save him.

How much he wants to see Kageyama smile, _genuinely_ , turn to him with none of that lingering sorrow in his eyes, and say: _I’m okay now._  
.  
.  
.  
_I’m okay, now._

*

When Hinata wakes, his mind is foggy and he feels as if he had never gone to sleep at all. His limbs feel heavy, and it’s all he can do to squint groggily at his cheap alarm clock. Outside the window, the world is still dark, not even a hint of sunlight poking over the horizon. 

1:00 AM

The clock blinks back at him, the batteries blinking wearily.

For a moment, all he can do is lie in bed like a statue and wonder why in hell he is awake so early. The moon is still glimmering in the sky, a dark gray cloud passing over it every so often and casting the world briefly into shadow and darkness- a world wandering through though the vast majority of space, made up of dark matter. 

He almost turns around to go back to sleep, but as a yawn that drags at his lips, Hinata hears the tell-tale creak of footsteps on the rusty old stairs to the roof and thinks _oh._

It’s Kageyama.

In all the time that Hinata has known him, Kageyama has always, without fail, gotten up between 3:30 to 4:00 AM. He has never once been earlier, nor has he ever been late. And yet, the door to the roof slams, echoing from somewhere high above him.

For a moment, he wonders if his clock is finally broken and it’s actually dawn, but that can’t be true because the moon is still high in the sky, floating at the peak of the ocean night sky.

So Hinata lets out a sleepy yawn and forces his creaky bones upright, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and wiping the drool from his lips. His legs still feel like liquid and his arms feel as if they haven’t returned from whatever dream he had been slipping through, but he forges on and somehow manages to stumble to the door, hands fumbling with his blankets and his keys.

The darkness makes it hard to see, and even as his hands reach out against the walls to guide his way, his tired mind wonders if this is how Kageyama feels every day, navigating a world that is made of distorted light and agonizing darkness. He almost stubs his toe on the staircase before he finds it, and almost bangs his head onto the door to the rooftop if not for how it is open just a sliver.

Again, Hinata finds it odd, as the last cobwebs of sleep drift away from his mind. Kageyama has always closed the door to the roof, just like how he’s never gone up here this early.

Something is different.

_Today_ is different.

Hinata still remembers that day a week ago, sitting amongst the sunrise and clutching Kageyama’s hands, melded with his own, to his chest, hugging him so tight that they might have become a single entity, something within him breaking for the young, happy, _alive_ boy that he sees in Kageyama’s distorted memories.

Of course, Kageyama is still _alive_ , but it’s a different kind of alive. His lungs whistle with air like the calm before a storm, and coiled above his shoulders, there is always a memory weighing him down. He is empty bones and a hollow chest. A train of a thousand ghosts, a thousand broken memories, chugging along, whispering howling wind and wailing with a shattered poignance. He is not quite alive anymore, and yet, he isn’t dead.

He is the farthest thing from such.

He is fire and wind and rain and ocean. He is sun and moon and stars and shadow. He is a soft sigh, a flickering candle, a radio in the background playing a song that everyone knows but no one remembers. He is the sound of the tides and the scent of the morning dew and the sight of a sunrise, blending color and light and darkness; a sunrise, breathtaking and beautiful, and _fragile._

A sunrise.

A new beginning.

Hinata opens the door.

The moon is split in half, lathering the world in uncountable shades of silver and grey and convoluted black. The grey concrete of the roof shimmers like water, rippling and fading before brightening again. Clouds billow like shadows in the night sky, hiding the stars from view, and a few city lights twinkle back at him like stars below. The world feels like it has turned upside down; wild shadows dancing in the sky alongside the rocking path of the moon and the stars blinking in unnatural yellow electricity below.

Lights flicker and silver cascades over everything in tranquil silence, but the anchor point in Hinata’s life stands against the backdrop of the deathly beautiful midnight view, tall and unshakeable, his hands folded neatly on top of the railing instead of sitting on the other side, off the edge, like he normally does.

Kageyama is shaded a thousand different colors that the human language can never begin to explain, shadows dancing across his skin as if they don’t know how to sit still, as if he is a moving, billowing canvas of wind. His eyes glisten, piercing through the night.

Hinata’s breath catches in his throat. His mind unravels with all of the words that he will never speak, all of the words that float in his mind and turns his limbs to goo. Kageyama looks like something pulled straight of out Hinata’s imagination- a fairy, fair and pretty, a vampire, pale and soundless, a human, regal and incredible and perfect but not really so- perfect in that way where imperfection becomes _beauty_. His lips are a flicker of pink against black and white, and his eyes swirl even when they’re staying still- a patten that moves in illusion.

Hinata’s heart _moves._

It does something in his chest- that weird, indescribable feeling of bursting and feeling too small for every little thing that it holds. There is too much- Kageyama is _too much_ , and _yet._

He is just enough.

Hinata loses himself within the midnight and his overflowing heart and this man that stands there as if he isn’t stealing Hinata away to a place of broken lies and a truth that hurts more than anything. A lovely, beautiful, _breaking_ place.

“Hinata-san.” Kageyama speaks first, turning towards him, his eyes a beacon in the darkness. A smile twitches at his lips, and Hinata almost cannot dig up the words from beneath the raging ocean of emotions inside him.

“How many more times do I have to tell you to call me Shouyou?” Hinata asks him teasingly, his voice coming out just a little breathless. The fondness wells up from inside of him, seeping through his entire being before soaking into his words. The moment feels tender, almost as if he could reach out and grab that invisible something that pulses around them. His heart does a weird rhythm in his chest, and Hinata almost wants to hiss at it to shut up. 

Kageyama steps closer to him, a real smile breaking out over his face- small and tentative, but real and so, _so_ very beautiful. Hinata thinks that his heart may have stopped beating. The rest of the world fades away until all that is left is Kageyama.

Hurting, real, amazing, _lovely_ Kageyama.

Hinata can barely stop himself from taking a step back as Kageyama stops to stand in front of him, just a mere few inches away. If even the slightest of wind pushed him over, they would meet in the middle.

In the middle of this rooftop that they have both come to love more than anything else.

In the middle of these tangled feelings and collapsing memories.

In the middle of all of those moments that they have shared, sitting side-by-side at the edge of a rooftop, watching the sun rise.

They meet, in the middle.

“No more times,” Kageyama whispers, eyes glimmering and smile widening by just a margin, fond and soft and almost _loving_ \- “Shouyou.” 

His hands come up, gently brushing the stray strands of Hinata’s wild orange hair to the side and cupping his cheeks with a careful mildness that one would use while touching something of the utmost importance. His fingers rub gentle circles into the skin of Hinata’s cheeks, feather-light and hypnotizing. A shiver runs down Hinata’s spine. He is barely aware of anything else. Kageyama’s hands are warm and human and they _burn_ into Hinata’s skin as if they are alight with fire. His skin shudders slightly, a sudden warmth pulsating through his limbs, starting from the blazing point where their skin meets.

Kageyama is bright and glowing, his form outlined silver from the moonlight. His black hair glows with white and his eyes roar with the deepest parts of the ocean. His skin is rough with age-old callouses, but Hinata does not care. Kageyama is warm and standing just in front of him, awash in something that makes him look otherworldly and yet so _human._

So _real._

Hinata’s heart bursts.

He can barely think as he reaches up with slow and steady hands and- and pulls Kageyama’s head down, down, until their lips meet, in the middle of _everything_. The clouds cover the moon, and darkness slowly swallows them whole, but Hinata does not care, and Kageyama certainly doesn’t notice. They lose themselves in each other and the blazing warmth in each other’s lips, on each other’s tongue, and Hinata presses himself so close that he can no longer tell where he begins and Kageyama starts. They are one and they are whole and perhaps, just maybe, they can fill all of the emptiness and the cracks in their seams with this melting honey gold- with these kisses and this feeling, leaning up to each other in the dark of the night, pressing closer and closer until there is no longer any space between them, until this one kiss is all they have, all by themselves, not even the moon a witness.

Kageyama is hypnotizing and Hinata feels as if he is melting starting from his bones, from his lips, from the burning touch of Kageyama against his skin. He almost can’t get enough- the warmth intensifying until all he can feel is the pure pleasure of Kageyama with him like this; of them building each other up like this, of them flying through all of the sleet and hail, wrapped around each other and buoying each other up. Hinata almost feels addicted. He is light-headed and bright-eyed and something about Kageyama only makes Hinata feel breathless, feel like something is expanding in his heart, seeping through his veins and giving him immeasurable strength.

Kageyama’s lips meet his like the touch of a far-away star, like the heat of the sun, like the stillness of the moon, and all Hinata can think through the crashing sensation slowly starting to overwhelm him is: _Oh, oh, oh- this is love._

And eventually, after a thousand life-times, after a mere few seconds, they pull apart, hands still winding over each other’s skin, faces dotted with blushing roses, lips a stark red in the moonlight. For a moment, they stand, unable to move, unable to blink away the haze that still surrounds them, panting as they try to regain their breath.

A moment passes.

Then another.

Maybe even another.

Time is a concept lost to him, Kageyama’s touch on his back still burning with heat.

Hinata breathes hard, his thoughts unable to form. He cannot think anything of this, cannot put this down into words- all he has for him right now as he stares up in awe at this person he has come to love even more than himself are the feelings that he can no longer contain in the gut of his stomach. They threaten to spill out, too strong and too large, too low and too deep.

Too agonizingly _real._

“I love you.” He breathes out before he can think about it, the words tumbling from his lips, tangled with a cascade of other emotions.

_Love you, love you, love you_ , the stars and the wind and the moon sing back at him, repeating his words evermore. His chest overflows with the flaming emotions inside of him until all that he can do is breathe and stand and burst with _life._ Kageyama is still cupping his cheeks gently, his thumbs still rubbing circles into Hinata’s skin. He feels as if he will later find two tiny circles burned into his skin- countless rosemary flowers blossoming from his cheeks. Hinata’s fingers tap against Kageyama’s skin, and he hopes that Kageyama can hear the message that they hold: _I’m here, I’m here, I’m here._

“Me too.” Kageyama says quietly, as if they are the final words to the spell that they are casting here, tonight, standing in the middle of it all. Hinata lets out a laugh of relief, but it is more a breath, a sigh, a brush of wind. He is giddy and happy and adrenaline _sings_ underneath his skin. 

"I'm sor-" Kageyama starts.

"Don't apologize." Hinata interrupts him, his smile threatening to rip his cheeks, his heart roaring wildly in his chest. He's burning, he's burning, but this time he is a phoenix, and he is being built anew. Kageyama stares at him for a moment, eyes filled with something beautiful and _breaking_ , but instead, he opens his mouth to say:

"...Okay." 

It feels like the happiest moment of his life.

They kiss.

Again.

Again.

Again.

And at some point, Kageyama starts to cry, salty tears cascading down his cheeks like droplets of rain. Hinata tastes the pain and the bitterness and the guilt on his lips and only kisses him back harder.

_It’s okay._ He wants to tell him, wants to pour into him with the touch of his lips against Kageyama’s. _We’ll be okay._

Slow tears make their own way down his own face. Hinata does not know why, but he welcomes them all the same. Emotions explode inside of him; a thousand supernovas colliding. Something breaks inside of him only for something new to start to grow there, taking its place. Hinata’s feelings seem to drip from his skin, drifting out into the world until they coat the moon and the stars and this world that they have silently made their own.

_We’ll be okay._

_We’ll be okay, we’ll be okay, okay, okay._

His heart chants and his tears sing and his lips speak without forming words.

They both cry, but they never stop kissing.

They never stop feeling.

*

Some time near 2 AM, they head back down together, hand in hand. 

Hinata never wants to let go.

"Can I stay?" Kageyama says, his words and his silhouette dreamlike in the darkness. _I want to stay._ Hinata hears in the pause of his lips and the silence. _Would you let me stay?_ He hears in the halt of his voice and the tilt to his eyes. "Just... Just this once." Kageyama murmurs softly.

"Of course." Hinata whispers back, and it's all that he can bear to say, here, gripping Kageyama's hands and his cheeks and his heart.

Kageyama enters Hinata’s apartment, lips still red, tear tracks still glowing, his black hair ruffled and messy. Moonlight sways and shadows dance, and together, still clutching at each other as if they may cease to exist, they stumble into bed. 

Kageyama’s breath is warm against his skin as he buries his head into Hinata’s chest. Finding solace in Hinata’s thin shirt, in the scent of nuts and berries and sunlight that drifts from him. Slowly, they tangle together into a mess of limbs and hands and torsos until they cannot be broken apart. They hold each other tight, warmth leaping like fire across their skin, and quietly, they slip into the dark caress of sleep.

Before Hinata falls asleep, he thinks he hears Kageyama sigh a silent _goodbye_ into the fabric of Hinata's shirt.

*

_(“Do you know the story of Icarus?”_

.  
.  
.

_“His father built him wings of wax…”)_

*

The wind howls in Hinata’s face as he drifts through the sky, his wings flapping behind him. The sun shimmers somewhere high above, and the sky ripples strangely. Everything sounds underwater- muffled and distorted.

As Hinata squints his eyes, he spots something in the distance.

He flies a little bit closer, one moment drifting through somewhere and the next, close enough to see the… person.

The person has wings that seem to shine in the sunlight. _Metal?_ Hinata wonders. Or perhaps… _wax._

Slowly, the wax starts to melt. 

Hinata opens his mouth to shout a warning, but now he feels as if he is under quicksand, his body slow and the world sinking. The wax melts more and more, faster and faster, until Hinata blinks and the wings are gone, as if they had never existed at all.

Hinata watches in detached horror as the person hangs there as if suspended, for just a moment, before he starts to fall, slowly, as if he is sinking through layers of ocean. Hinata tries to speed up, flying as fast as he can through the sky, feeling as though he is swimming against a strong current. He pushes and pushes, his wings trembling on his back as a voice in his mind internally yells _faster, faster, faster_. His limbs shake and the wind blows his hair into his eyes, blinding him.

He can’t… _move-_

And then, the moment snaps, and Hinata finds that he can fly normally again.

He zips through the air, the wind smacking in his face so hard that Hinata’s vision goes blurry with tears. The world distorts and shrinks and Hinata continues to fly as the person continues to fall. His wings tremble and the wind screams, but Hinata just continues to fly.

He flies.

He blinks, and then suddenly he is gripping the person’s hand. They hang there, in the air, for a long moment. Hinata’s wings ache. He tries to fly up, but the person’s weight is too much; his wings cannot handle it. They are suspended in an eternal push and pull- Hinata strong enough to keep them in the air, but not strong enough to move. The person blinks up at him slowly, and then smiles, small and tentative and real. He opens his mouth to say something, his rosemary red lips spelling something out that might just be _I love you_ , but the wind roars through Hinata’s ears and rips the words away. Hinata blinks, and tears drip from his eyes.

_What?!_ He tries to yell, but his voice will not come out, and he cannot move.

The boy smiles again, his lips blooming with red. His cheeks are glistening with tear-tracks. He opens his mouth again.

_Thank you_ , he says, his voice soft and gentle in a way that seems so, very familiar. This time, Hinata hears it, even through the howling of the wind, because it seems to echo from everywhere; from all corners of the sky, even as the world starts to melt into orderly chaos.

_Wait_ , Hinata wants to say, because something inside of him is screaming, because something inside of him is telling him that he can never let go. Something in his chest pulses and beats and clogs his lungs until he finds it hard to breathe, and his eyes push out tears even when the wind no longer blows. _Wait, please!_ But his voice will not come out. He is frozen in this wallowing world where the sky is made of layers of blue paint that is slowly peeling off, this world where everything is fake, but everything is real in a way that shatters Hinata’s soul.

The boy smiles and smiles and smiles and Hinata feels as if something beautiful and perfect inside of him is straining, is wailing, is quietly breaking.

The sun suddenly becomes blinding and the wind screams so loudly that Hinata can hear it echoing through the empty cavern of his ribcage, and Hinata _loses his grip-_

The black-haired, blue-eyed, beautiful boy _slips from his fingers-_

_He’s **falling-**_

*

_“KAGEYAMA-!”_

Hinata wakes up with a gasp, heart thumping against his ribs so hard that he feels that his bones may break. Sunlight cascades in through the open window, and the loud sound of the city roars in from outside. Hinata clutches his chest, unable to calm down, unable to stop crying, faced with the terrible, gut-wrenching feeling of _knowing_ that something has gone horribly _wrong._

His cheap alarm clock across the room displays 8:00 AM.

The red numbers blink back at him innocently, and even as Hinata tries to wipe his tears away, they only keep coming. There is a terrible weight over his chest, and no matter how hard he breathes, he can’t seem to fill his lungs with air. Panic turns his thoughts to dust. His entire body shakes.

The room is silent save for his desperate gasps of air. Hinata sits upright in bed and something in his heart aches.

The space in the bed next to him is empty.

His shirt is wet with tears not his own.

_8:01 AM_ , the clock stutters at him.

He doesn’t stop shaking.

*

Kageyama isn’t here, Kageyama isn’t here, _Kageyama isn’t here-_

The next thing Hinata knows, he’s throwing his blankets off, banging his hip over his bedside rickety bedside table in his haste, tripping over his blankets and crashing into the floor face-first as he tries to run towards the door. Pain erupts in his nose and through the entirety of his side, starting from his hip, stabbing at him like a thousand needles. Hot, burning blood drips down his cheeks and onto the floor, but Hinata _doesn’t care_ because _Kageyama isn’t here-_

He forces his shaking limbs up, and even before he’s placed his feet back on the ground, he’s streaking towards his door, slamming it open like a bull and causing pain to burst outwards like a star from his shoulder. He doesn’t bother closing it, barely catching himself on the wall opposite his apartment before angling himself onto that familiar path that is almost engraved into his mind, taking the stairs three at a time, not bothering to stop for the breath that is slowly escaping his lungs and spinning the world dizzy around him.

He runs like a madman, because he feels as if he is actually going mad. He is at his tipping point: his blood roars, his pain shrieks, and tears still streak down his face like rain, but all Hinata can do is keep running.

Up and up and up he goes, higher and higher, and the tears only pour faster as he starts getting closer to this place that he has loved for a year, to this place where the man he _loves-_

To this place where _just a few hours ago they-_

He slams the door open, and it hits the wall with a loud bang that echoes through the air and jars Hinata’s bones.

The sun is high in the sky, cars are lined up and honking loudly in traffic, people line the streets, going about their lives, unknowing of how the sun has stopped shining.

Hinata crumbles to his knees and sobs.

Something in his heart shatters, leaving his chest hollow.

*

The roof is empty.

*

_(“Maybe he can catch him.” He says, turning back to look into nothing in particular and yet something unseen._

.  
.  
.

_“Icarus, that is.”)_

*

“I’m sorry.” His mother tells him over the phone as he cries. He knows that she had no clue who Kageyama was, but he knows that she is genuinely sorry for him. That doesn’t make him stop crying.

He doesn’t want to imagine it.

He doesn’t want to even _think_ about it- think about Kageyama _killing-_

Last night, they’d stood under the light of a thousand stars and kissed in the darkness with only each other as witness- they’d kissed each other again and again and _again_ , and it had been _perfect_ , so, very perfect. Kageyama had been warm and beautiful and he had _smiled_ under the moonlight-

They tell him that Kageyama had locked himself in his room. Nobody had heard him and nobody had thought to get him to open the door, and so he’d bled out there, in the middle of his crappy one-room apartment, just a thin wall away from where Hinata had been sleeping, his red blood soaking into that dumb blue rug of his, body going cold and eyes going dull and tears running down his face like he was grieving, even as he slipped away. Like he was weeping for the end of his own life; like he was weeping for the life that he could have had, for the future that he was stealing from his own self.

They tell him that he had faded away there, alongside death’s embrace.

They tell him that he had died at 1 AM.

But Hinata knows that that isn’t true, knows that that _can’t_ be true, because at 1 AM he had met Kageyama at the roof in the moonlight and they’d stepped closer and closer until they’d stood less than 5 inches apart and they’d kissed and kissed and Kageyama had parted his lips to spell out _"Shouyou"_.

They tell him that he had died at 2 AM, but Hinata knows that that isn’t true, _can’t_ be true, because at 2 AM he and Kageyama had stepped into his apartment, hand in hand, and spilled into bed together, wrapping each other up, tangling in each other’s grip, and Kageyama had curled into Hinata’s body and pushed his head into Hinata’s chest, his breath warm and his eyes pouring out tears that _wouldn’t stop._

Hinata wonders where exactly they had gone wrong; where exactly that _he’d_ gone wrong.

From sitting with him to talking with him to hugging him beneath the light of the stars. From calling him _Tobio_ to kissing him wildly like he was the only thing that Hinata needed, because he _was_ the only thing that Hinata needed.

_Had_ needed.

Which one had he done wrong? 

Which one had made-

Made Kageyama kill himself?

The funeral is a quiet, empty affair. Less than ten people show up, and eight of them are the residents of the apartment, all of them looking as if they’d rather be anywhere else. Some of them look half-drunk. 

None of Kageyama’s old teammates show up. 

Hinata wants to scream.

The cheapest funeral was paid for, and some sermon stumbles over his words as he tries to say a prayer or whatever it is that you’re supposed to say during a funeral. It doesn’t matter to him, because he can’t hear it anyways. The world has been plunged into the deepest sea. Hinata can’t hear, he can’t breathe, and he feels that if he opens his mouth, everything will overwhelm him and he’ll disintegrate to ash under the weight of it all, ceasing to exist. The scent of incense stings against his nose and turns his mind over and over and over again until his thoughts are jumbled and his head spins dizzily.

He can’t breathe.

He almost feels as if he cannot see, either, but the black eating away at his vision recedes before he is plunged into complete darkness, and instead, his vision distorts and shatters until the only thing he can bear to look at is the blocky carving of Kageyama’s name on his gravestone. 

KAGEYAMA TOBIO, it says.

The hollow emptiness writhing in his chest sinks and seeps and flows until his skin is see-through and his organs are nonexistent- he is a shell, a wooden doll carved out from the inside. His mind wanders and caves in; words crashing and thoughts merging together until all that's left is a blind nothingness, a feeling of vagueness that pounds in his head. All color seeps away until the world is left with nothing; there is no wind, no sun, no moon, no stars. There is no ocean, no fire, no sunrise- there is _nothing_ , because Kageyama had been _everything_ , and Kageyama _isn’t here anymore._

His entire body feels weak, as if all of the energy is squeezed out of him, and for a moment, he feels as if he will collapse, right then and there, staring down at the portrait of Kageyama’s face atop his grave- but that isn’t quite Kageyama, is it?

The Kageyama that Hinata knows is dyed gold in the light of the sun, is gleaming silver under the gaze of the moon, is a gentle portrait of moving lines that sway with the wind. He is color and shadow and light and darkness. He is gold and silver and red and orange and all the things that Hinata will never be able to explain. He is raw and striking and gentle and soft and so, so, _beautiful-_

He is quiet smiles and the scent of nature, a nostalgia that crackles like a campfire, a broken grief and longing that never leaves but always fills each moment with a certain, breathtaking poignance. He is blue and black and silver. He’s a mystery; a fairy, an angel, a supernatural being that howls in the darkness and the light, a legend of times long past, stories of unnatural beauty and indescribable beings of myth- and yet he is so, fucking _human._

He’s _real_ and _tangible_ and _close enough to touch-_

Or, he had been.

Now he’s a body in the dirt, cracking memories, and the painful ache that roars to life in his chest every time he sees the sunset, every time he sees that empty roof. The throbbing emptiness that feasts upon his remains no matter what he does, the loneliness that simmers in his mind every waking moment of his life and haunts him in his dreams each night where that blue-eyed, black-haired boy falls, again and again, but this time, he doesn’t say _I love you_ , he says _why._

He is the emptiness in the air, in his bed, on his lips.

The sun is starting to sink under the horizon, streaking the sky with bloody reds and violent crimsons. Shades of dark orange and yellow and deep red melt together until they become colorless. Hinata vaguely wonders if Kageyama’s blood had been that color when he’d died, if the carpet had turned red, just like that, broken and melting and _grey._

He’s sinking. 

He feels as if he is no longer human. As if he no longer exists in this pitiful universe.

He is Hinata, but he is not. He is real, but he is fake. He is human, but at the same time, all he feels like is a ghost, meandering through worlds he will never remember again on legs of wispy mist and a mind lost within turmoil. 

The sun is setting.

Hinata stands alone in front of the grave of the one person he’d ever loved with all the space his heart had to offer, and from there even more.

_Love, love, love_ , the wind whispers back at him, taunting, sorrowful- a thousand different crashing emotions.

KAGEYAMA TOBIO, the grave says.

Hinata does not laugh. He does not cry, he does not scream. He does not rage, he does not wail _why, why, why_ , does not shout _I loved you, I loved you_ , does not break into sobs. He does not ask _is it my fault_ , does not say _I tried to save you_ , does not say _I could have saved you._

Hinata doesn’t say anything, nor does he feel anything.

All Hinata can do, is stand there, outlined in the light of the sunset, orange hair turned ablaze, brown eyes glimmering with all the things that he cannot feel.

All he can do, is stand there and try to breathe again.

In for three, out for four.

To feel again.

In for three, out for four.

To feel _human_ again.

_(“Do you know the story of Icarus?”)_

Hinata Shouyou stands in front of Kageyama Tobio’s grave long after the sun has set, and if one looks closely enough, two bright wings of wax rustle on his back. Then, slowly, they distort, almost as if they are melting, as if invisible magma is running down the length of their feathers. They pull and they melt and then they are gone, ashes drifting away with the wind.

Hinata Shouyou stands in front of Kageyama Tobio’s grave, and the first hint of stars on the horizon watch with cold eyes as he drifts, for just a moment, before he exhales, rosemary flowers wilting on his cheeks, his mind lost in the memories he will never have again. The stars watch, as he stands and he stares, and quietly, 

He starts 

to

f  
a  
l  
l  
.

**Author's Note:**

> :)
> 
> So... how was it? Please kudos and tell me your thoughts down in the comments! I'm welcome to ranting, screaming, crying, or any type of comment as long as it isn't hurtful! :D
> 
> Also, IMPORTANT MESSAGE: If you are someone out there who is considering suicide right now, please take a moment and reconsider. It may not seem like it, but please, there are people out there who love you, or will love you, in the future. You are not useless, and you are worth it; _you have worth._ I won't tell you that it'll "get better" because honestly, you might now ever feel 100% "better". I can just tell you that one day, you'll come to a point where you can think _I'm okay with this. I'm okay with me._ , and that will be enough.  
> Please call suicide prevention (in your country. for now, I'll just put America): 1-800-273-8255
> 
> Oh and please check out my Tumblr. I recently made one for my writing! I generally post a lot of Avatar:The Last Airbender content, but I do also post about my writing as well, so go ahead and follow me if you'd like to! 
> 
> https://klixxy.tumblr.com/


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